


The Devil You Don't

by bovie



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, He’s busy being fine, Insomnia, Memory Loss, Nobody knows what to do, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Civil War (Marvel), Team as Family, Tony Stark needs a hug but is an impossible stoic cactus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 08:58:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11779767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bovie/pseuds/bovie
Summary: What he can't remember can't hurt him. Right?Prompt (#t55232190) [Gen, Noncon]Tony awakens naked in the woods in a ditch with no memory of how he got there or what happened. After making the slow return home he tries to put the pieces together but has no luck. When he gets home, he is showered with a worried team who tell him he's been missing for several months. This startles Tony and he tries even harder to remember. For the most part he's able to bring up a fuzzy image of himself surrounded by strangers.





	The Devil You Don't

Cold and the oppressive musk of damp earth is the first thing Tony becomes aware of.

Good news, it doesn't feel like The Cave. Bad news, this is new and happening _now._

Well shit. Time to take inventory.

He attempts to open his eyes, but his muscles are sluggish to respond, as if his intentions can't quite reach them. Plus, there's some sort of sensory disturbance going on. There's not really a sense of texture against his skin—just pressure and a general ache that's hard to localize.

It's not exactly like being drunk. More like coming out of anesthesia.

(Which comes with its own set of warning bells, but he is resolutely putting that on the back burner for now.)

Okay. So he's been drugged. Fun, he thinks dryly, but unoriginal.

It takes a minute, but he finally recruits enough muscle activity to open his eyes, and a strip of bleary vision opens above him in a smear of pine, dead tree branches, and grey sky.

So... the woods. Temperate, probably. Not high elevation; the air is thick and wet.

He's lying on his back in a mix of dirt, rock, twigs, decomposing leaves—your average forest floor. The ditch hugs his sides and it's not an uncomfortable place, per se, but his body feels independently uncomfortable and not entirely present. With resistance, he raises his head awkwardly, chin to his chest, and he looks down the profile of his body.

Which is very naked.

(Jesus, was he always this white? He should schedule some time to go to the beach or something.)

Well... Naked in a ditch in the woods is generally a bad sign. He can't quite remember the last thing he was doing, but good days typically don't end up here. Don't need to tax the old genius to figure that out.

—Oh. _He can't remember the last thing he was doing._ Noted.

Huh.

He feels his own breath quicken, lungs tangled with humid air and rising panic, and he has to tamp down, _hard._

Freak out later. Inventory, now.

Okay.

Ham-handedly, he braces an arm under himself and grabs a gnarled root protruding out from the side of the ditch. He pulls himself into a sitting position, vision lagging behind him in a nauseous whirl.

He hunches over his lap, giving his eyes and stomach some time to focus.

The scar from his heart surgery looks the same. His junk's still there, sitting patiently. And there doesn't seem to be any new holes in his body, which is all sorts of fabulous.

But it looks all wrong. Like he's looking at somebody else.

At least there don't seem to be any critical injuries, interestingly enough. And he wasn't buried. So this McVillain of the Day whoever wasn't necessarily looking for him to be dead, just...

Stranded, drugged, and naked in the woods after an unknown series of events.

Pragmatically, he can't ignore the possibility of there being a... sexual angle to the nakedness. Haltingly, he gives his body a once-over. He's covered in bruising that somehow looks like it's in different stages of healing. Some of it is indeed on his hips, but that could just be from being moved. Overall the placement looks pretty indiscriminate. He also looks for any bodily fluids, but...

It's actually hard to tell much of anything, because he's also just really goddamn dirty. Literally dirty.

Well, this is another issue for the back burner.

More importantly, where the _fuck_ is this, and _how does he get out of here?_

…This is fine. Take a deep breath.

Everything's okay—he can reverse-engineer this situation.

McVillain doesn't want him dead. So he can't be _that_ far from civilization.

(Unless they wanted to watch him hack it in the wild for funsies. But that's highly doubtful—there are much more challenging environments to be dropped in for that purpose, and if they know him at all, they wouldn't risk placing cameras everywhere and give him tech to cannibalize.)

Two, short of there being some magical teleportation element (he really hopes that's not the case), he must've be brought here by _somebody._ Which poses several scenarios. If they have any sense, they wouldn't have dropped him off near the McVillain homebase. So... some form of transportation, then being carried or lugged some distance into the woods. Probably by car, but he can't rule out boats or aircraft. Or being smuggled onto a freight train for a bit (but probably nothing as awesome as that).

Best case scenario, not too far from wherever this is, there's road access. Otherwise, he should be looking for a waterway, train tracks or a clearing to land something.

Knowing his luck, the body dumper is some kind of master spy, track-covering specialist, able to carry a body a superhuman distance. But, if Lady Luck is smiling at him, maybe he'll be able to retrace the path he was carried back to the first hypothetical drop-off point. In a semi-reasonable amount of time.

 _Fuck_ , it'd be nice to have tech on him. As it stands, he doesn't even have enough material to rig a quick flare.

(It briefly occurs to him he could just start a forest fire. _That'd_ get people here. But he doesn't know what kind of gift basket he'd have to get Pepper for that level of PR cleanup. And there's the whole being arrested for arson thing.)

(Or extradition. A cynical part of him volunteers that this might not even be the US.)

He swallows a lump in his throat.

It won't do him well to dwell on that. _Where this is_ shouldn't matter as much as where the nearest phone is. Find civilization, contact somebody, arrange to go home. That's a manageable plan.

(For a moment, he wonders if he should just stay put and wait, but quickly dismisses it. People might not even be aware that he's missing, much less have dispatched search and rescue in the right place.)

This means... He has to move.

He sighs in irritation—all this time thinking about the straw men, and he doesn't know if he can even _walk_ like this. Screw the program and the diagnostics; he needs to test the _compiler_.

"Okay. Up up. Let's walk," he says out loud, addressing the stagnant air as if it were his lab partner. He needs to get into his normal trouble-shooting headspace.

(Usually, in the lab, he can rein in the threatening gurgle of his feelings down to his normal low-grade panic.)

Unsteadily, he gets his blunt-feeling legs under himself, scrabbling numbly for purchase up the side of the ditch until he straightens his body out.

Standing, check. This is good.

He takes a tentative step forward within the ditch, balance relying mainly on gross proprioception, and finds it... awkward but doable. Encouraged, he takes a lunging step out of the shallower side of the ditch, hanging some of his weight off a narrow tree trunk, and lifts himself out.

Not bad. He... should be able to travel. And hopefully, as whatever drug wears off, it will get easier.

—Something inside him lurches sickeningly with the movement, and he squeezes his eyes shut, hoping the sensation will pass.

It doesn't. He doubles over and vomits.

On a good day, the combination of fluid and breathlessness and helplessness is not nice, but this is just miserable.

He moans a little as the last of the bile spills to the ground.

(Hm, he thinks distantly. Not all bile. He's had _some_ food recently.)

(Small mercies.)

He wipes some tears of physical effort out of his eyes, shoves down the lingering terror, and takes a sweeping look around.

The terrain around the ditch lies in a slight incline, shelving occasionally in masses of root and rock.

The overcast sky and the deep shroud of shade cast by the brush overhead makes determining cardinal direction impractical, but at least the uphill-downhill distinction gives the area some directionality; if he walks in a circle, it'll be a little more obvious.

If he looks uphill, there's a faint suggestion of a rock face in the distance through the trees. He'd make a conservative bet that they didn't come through that way—he doesn't seem to have sustained any fall injury, and rappelling down with an unconscious body sounds like a pain in the ass.

To think of it, coming from _downhill_ also sounds like it would've been a pain in the ass. He's not going to underestimate the fitness of the body dumper, but he might as well check sideways first.

For the time being, he's going to call uphill... 'north.' Probably isn't, but it'll do for his own reference.

With this stipulation, the ditch runs east-west-ish, and he was lying face up with his head to the 'east'. If the dumper had him in a fireman's carry, it's conceivable they might have come from the 'west.' If it was a bridal carry (ew), the direction is a toss up.

Or, the carry might not have anything to do with it. The guy could've turned himself around or adjusted his position in the ditch any number of times.

He'll check the 'west' end of the ditch anyway. Might as well work off something.

In the 'southwest' corner, there's... what he doesn't dare to hope is _something._ There are smooth furrows in the dirt, packed in places. Like somebody had slid down a ways and fallen backwards. It looks different than the loose clumping of dirt in the rest of the ditch.

...Aha.

They'd dragged a bit of the forest floor down with them. Mixed into the dirt is a hunk of detached moss from above.

(He might not be an outdoorsman (that's an understatement), but he hasn't gotten to be as successful as he is without an eye for detail.)

His heart beats a little faster—in the good way. The way it does when there's a happy accident in the lab. When he's discovered something new.

He can _work_ with this.

Time to commit. He moves 'west,' feet unfeeling against the forest floor, using trunks here and there as a cane. He moves his environment around, shifting leaves and branches like they're the soft, safe blue of his virtual models, and the details begin to emerge.

Footprints and scuff marks hidden in series of broken twigs and trodden leaves—the history of his transport flows from the earth like a blueprint. He feels the telltale pull of getting absorbed into the _process_ and feels less and less like he's lost and alone.

Twenty minutes or so later, his search for clues intersects a hiker's trail, and he could almost cry with relief.

Almost.

Eyes now critically hypersensitive to traces of human presence, he can _envision_ the flow of people who take this path, and it shocks him into the sudden awareness of his own nakedness.

He's walking naked on a well-beaten hiking path. During the day. And he looks like shit—as in 'call 911' looks like shit.

Although he's never been particularly body shy, the idea of running into somebody in such a vulnerable state doesn't sit well with him.

Well, what other choice does he have?

Technically, following the clues from earlier, it seems they just crossed this trail. But his goal isn't to find McVillain as much as it is to get back home. Following the well-beaten path will probably get him to civilization much faster—to a ranger lookout or a park center or something.

...Suck it up, buttercup.

Stark naked, he picks a direction, starts walking, and hopes (not) to be found.

* * *

Without the mental distraction of tracking to keep his senses sharp and _present_ , he feels himself starting to lose time as he wanders down the trail.

Apart from the humidity, the chill of the forest begins to feel like the desert at night. His mind fills in the lost sensation of texture in his skin with the grit of sand between his toes and the paradoxical sting of a phantom sunburn.

(He can't tell if he's actually hungry, or if the feeling of hunger is a remnant of Afghanistan.)

He thinks of Rhodey coming down from the sky. Cheeseburgers and coffee. The Press Conference (capitalized in his dossier). Other times he's been kidnapped.

(Historically, he has an excellent track record of surviving kidnappings, but that doesn't stop his body from keeping score with sleepless nights.)

Maybe the forfeiture of his human rights is the price for what he did to the world. Using unprecedented genius to make _weapons_. The Jericho.

(Although, good ol' Dad and Obie had that ball rolling well before he could really understand it.)

He doesn't know what McVillain did. But maybe he had it coming.

When the lonely silence of the forest gives way to the first signs of people approaching—indistinct murmurs and a crackling shuffle through dead leaves—his earlier reticence to be seen is mostly drowned out by his self-deprecating mood and his body's inconsolable cry to be found in the desert.

Two people—men. Talking in an American English cadence.

That's nice. He might still be in the US yet.

(And, although he can hold his own in other languages, his signature blend of charming indifference is only fluent in English.)

Mostly for the hikers' sakes, he preserves his modesty by partially stepping behind a tree, but keeps himself in view.

He can roughly make them out now. One of them bears an uncanny resemblance to Steve Irwin. The other guy, in a baseball cap, is looking at a map and carrying _all the stuff_ like he's Irwin mk-II's sherpa.

He stares directly at Sherpa Guy, mostly as an experiment to test the Sixth Sense. And burn some time.

It's only when they're about four yards away that the guy looks up and sees him staring.

Sherpa Guy blanches like he's seen a ghost.

He points directly at him. "Do.... Do you see that?" he says tremulously.

_Excuse me?_

Irwin mk-II follows Sherpa Guy's finger. When he sees Tony, he also pales and immediately turns away.

“…Oh, _fuck me._ ” He turns to Sherpa Guy, stricken. “Not cool, Ev. You said this place was _fine!_ Are you fucking with me? Because if you're fucking with me, I swear to god, I'll—”

“No! I'm not! I swear, I didn't—”

“Um, hi?” Tony tries, waving.

“Oh shit. Shit. It’s _talking_ to us,” whispers Irwin mk-II.

_‘It’?_

“Careful now, you might actually hurt my feelings,” Tony quips, giving his best media grin because _who the fuck raised these people?_ “Hi. I’m Tony Stark. You know, Iron Man? Saved the world? More patents than you have relatives?”

“Uh… yeah…” Sherpa Guy says nervously. “We know. Um… It’s just—you’re… _dead._ ”

Tony blinks. He wasn’t expecting that.

“Uh, _no?_ Not dead,” he replies with condescending gentleness.

“It was… on the news a while back. The funeral. You were declared dead.”

Suddenly all of their behavior makes sense.

Tony shakes his head. “You think I'm a ghost,” he laughs disbelievingly, patience a bare thread.

"Well," Sherpa Guy fiddles anxiously with his map, folding and refolding it along well-worn creases. "This forest has a... reputation. I mean. I don't believe in it—I just like the trails—but, uh..."

"Great, put me in the spooky forest," Tony mutters. "I am _not_ a ghost."

"You're not?" Irwin mk-II asks skeptically.

"Um, positive. I'm cold. A little peckish—hey, you. Sherpa—Evan? You have anything in that pack of yours? Help a guy out. Also, can I see that map?”

Hesitantly, Sherpa Guy hands him the map, slides his bag off, and starts rooting around.

Hm... Massachusetts. Highlighter marks from a steady hand through Freetown State Forest.

"This place has a reputation, huh."

"Yeah. There _have_ been some crimes here. But I don't buy the stories about ghosts and UFOs."

"Until you saw me," Tony jokes, a little pointedly.

(He's not going to go into the fact that he had a front row seat to actual aliens visiting earth, but it does fill him with some trepidation concerning his abduction.)

"...Sorry about that," Sherpa Guy says sheepishly, averting his eyes, like it's _just_ dawned on him that he's talking to _Tony Stark_. A similar expression is forming on Irwin mk-II. "Here." He hands Tony a blanket and a LUNA bar.

Tony gratefully accepts the offering, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders and opening the bar.

The atmosphere has moved from bizarre to _awkward_.

"Uh," Irwin mk-II starts, "Do you need an... ambulance?"

Absolutely.

"No," is what comes out of his mouth.

He sits on a mossy log slightly off the trail, savoring in the warmth of the blanket and the _stability_ —the exhaustion of fighting his altered sense of balance is catching up to him.

"Can I borrow a phone?" he asks after swallowing a bite of the LUNA bar. (So far, it seems to be sitting alright in his stomach.)

"Sure." Sherpa Guy is the first to bite, reaching into his pocket reflexively. But then he seems to think better of it, looking flustered. "Actually, uh—you... probably don't want to see my phone. Reception's pretty bad out here—"

"Don't worry, it won't offend me if you don't have a Starkphone," Tony teases wryly. Poor guy. "Anything'll do."

"...If you say so." Sherpa Guy unlocks and hands over his smartphone, looking embarrassed. "There really is like only one bar."

"That's fine." Tony balks a little internally when he sees the proffered item, and he decides to make a subtle show of having his hands full—one hand holding the blanket around himself, the other holding the snack bar. (He takes a sizeable munch for good measure.) "Oh, sorry—hands are full," he apologizes cosmetically. (He _is_ sorry for subjecting this guy to his BS, though.) "You can just set it right there."

He telegraphs a spot next to him on the log with his eyes.

To his relief, Sherpa Guy doesn't seem to question it too much—apart from a receptive pause—and does just that.

Nice. No fuss no muss.

(To make things seem a little more natural, he finishes off the LUNA bar and lets some time elapse before taking the phone.)

First thing he does with the phone is patch himself into the SI network (his towers are just _better_ ). Not strictly legally and not undetectably—he'd made _damn sure_ any entry would be detectable. So he'll have to clear that up later. But as the proprietor, he should have carte blanche, right?

(He'll defend Sherpa Guy's honor if it comes down to it. Even if he owns a _Samsung_.)

He sighs, mentally crosses his fingers, and dials Fury's satphone.

...Well, from one dead man to another.

When Fury picks up and answers the call with his normal intimidating silence (he's not one to wantonly give his voice away to strangers, the prude), Tony is caught between feeling relieved and feeling nauseated, because this could turn into a _conversation_.

Not if he can help it.

"Hey Eyepatch, Daddy's back in town."

«...Stark?»

"Fun twist: I'm not dead. I'm in Freetown State Forest, Massachusetts, and I could use a lift. Track this phone and make it snappy. On the DL, no press, you know the drill—full scale stealth mode because apparently I'm dead to the world." Tony presses forward, not giving Fury long enough to chew on any of his words more than once. "Avengers are okay to contact—anyways, I'm going to go find a clearing. Later alligator."

He gives Fury just enough time to acquiesce with a beleaguered sigh and a mutter of 'I'm too old for this' before he hangs up.

There. Conversation avoided. For now.

The Hiker Duo are looking at him with the usual mixture of apprehension and overwhelmed awe he receives whenever he commandeers and shorthands interactions he doesn't have the patience for.

(Or can't handle.)

Well, not quite the usual mixture—a little more apprehension.

"What is it, the not dead thing?" he queries with theatrical but genuine concern. "Oh—if it's the tracking your phone thing, don't worry about it. I mean, if you're squeamish about it, I can get you a new phone. Actually—let me give you a Starkphone. Please. It's a conscience thing."

"...Are you serious?" Sherpa Guy asks with cautious interest.

"Yeah, totally. I'll pay for the plan and everything."

"...You really don't have to—"

"Shh, buying people things is my shtick—I'm terrible at thank yous." Upon seeing the faux indifference on Irwin mk-II's face, Tony soothes, "Hey now, you get one, too. Don't think I'd leave you out."

Then it kicks in.

"...Oh my god, thank you so much!"

"This is awesome!"

"It's not a big deal," Tony dismisses, but inwardly preens at being Santa Claus. (In retrospect, it's a welcome role reversal from being the drugged naked guy they found in the woods.) "Before you shit your pants, do you know if there's a clearing around here...? Like, big enough to land a small plane?"

"Right—yeah." Self-consciously, Sherpa Guy clears his throat and the excitement off his face. "Yeah… There's a place back a ways off Bell Rock Road."

"You mean that road we crossed by the pond?" Irwin mk-II squints, eyes drawn up and left in recollection. "Oh yeah, there was that house. And I was like, 'who the hell’d live out here?'"

"Yeah, that place. I _think_ that'd be a decent amount of land." Sherpa Guy scratches at the stubble on his jaw. "Worst comes to worst, if that's not big enough, we could take Bell Rock to the parking lot or Wings Corner."

Tony nods. "Sounds like a solid plan." (Depending on the size and traffic of the road, they could also potentially land the Quinjet there.) "So... how far back are we talking?"

"Eh... maybe a mile, mile and a half. Give or take." Sherpa Guy eyes his condition over briefly, before respectfully turning his gaze away. "The terrain's not too bad, but... are you good to walk?"

Not really.

"Yeah," he lies. He just wants to move this along already, and he's not going to make these guys carry him unless he absolutely has to. "Just gimme a sec and I'll be good to go."

All he has to do summon the depths of his full concentration so he can pretend his coordination isn't completely shot to hell.

He stands up smoothly in a fair impersonation of wellness, although the physics acting on and within his numb body are more a calculation than an experience. (Hm, this is what it must be like for JARVIS to pilot the suit.) He feels insensate, bizarre, and only held in the environment by a thread, but he forces himself to draw his shoulders back and lift his jaw in a show of predatory relaxation.

(He's a Stark, after all.)

"Probably didn't expect _this_ detour on your day trip." He smiles ruefully.

"Don't worry about it." Irwin mk-II looks away. "You... probably have a lot more going on than we do."

That's a surprisingly tactful way to put this shitshow he woke up to.

"Besides, we hike a lot," Sherpa Guy adds. "A mile or so isn't too much of a detour."

"Very kind." Tony reconfigures himself to hand back the borrowed items while keeping the blanket reasonably closed. "Here's your phone and your map."

"Thanks." Sherpa Guy tucks his phone back in his pocket, keeping the map in hand, and they all start walking back along the trail.

Tony lags behind in what could be construed as deferral to his tour guides, but it’s mostly for privacy. If those two are mainly focused on what’s ahead, they’ll have less opportunity to see what a mess he really is.

Sure enough, they only spare him the occasional backward glance. But it’s still enough to compel him to constantly manufacture his balance and economy of movement to stay within the tolerances of _I’m Tony Stark and I’m fine._

At first it’s a neurotic exercise, but as with anything, it quickly inspires a potential side project. (Remotely piloted suits that have his mannerisms could be a boon in terms of stealth. It wouldn’t be a huge coding overhaul, because most of the tasks are essentially the same—it’d mainly be tweaking some coefficients for a little _swagger_.)

(Maybe it wouldn’t make that big a difference, but sometimes life is about style points.)

(Sometimes it’s not.)

The mental diversion is shallow and actually counteractive—it makes the dichotomy between the seemingly normal working condition of his mind and his obvious memory deficit more salient.

_Why can’t he remember anything?_

“So Evan—your name’s Evan, right?” (They’ve probably progressed well past the introduction phase, given the circumstances, but he still doesn’t know their names.)

“Yeah.”

“And I’m Brian,” Irwin mk-II volunteers.

…Was it _just_ drugs? Or does he have some kind of brain damage? (Or—god forbid—is it psychological?)

“You have last names to go with that? I want to send my phones to the right people,” Tony hints coyly.

Blood tests. Blood tests and brain scans when he gets back—he’s going to be spending some quality time with JARVIS. Maybe he’ll forcibly invite Bruce to join the party, regardless of whatever kind of doctor he isn’t.

Hopefully he’ll be able to skip out on Medical altogether. They’re not the only people who have sterile Q-Tips and centrifuges.

( _That’s_ a back burner thought.)

“Sorry—it’s Horowicz,” Sherpa Guy adds. “And it’s -cz, not -tz.”

“Gotcha.”

“Adams. Exactly how you think you’d spell it.” (That his last name isn’t Irwin is somewhat of a letdown.)

So, Evan Horowicz and Brian Adams. Onto the mailing list they go.

“Alright then. You’ll be receiving phones and some swag in a day or two, courtesy of SI. —See now, can a ghost do that? I don’t think so,” he comments in an ersatz hurt voice betrayed by the quirk of his lips.

(They all share an awkward laugh.)

“Do you need our addresses?”

Technically no. He has _resources_. (But there’s no reason to freak them out.)

“Sure. When we get to the clearing, you can give them to me.”

The path begins a slow bend to the left, and straight ahead, the trees thin and grey daylight permeates through. At first, Tony thinks it’s the clearing, but as they get closer, he sees cattails and the stretching reflection of water.

It’s eerie. The water is deathly still, and clusters of thin, ashen-white, dead tree trunks reach straight up through the surface like the arms of someone drowning.

(Maybe he’s biased, but he’s not a fan of this forest.)

“Big pond.” It looks more like a lake.

“Yeah. We’ll follow the edge of it for a while ‘til we get to Bell Rock,” Sherpa Guy says without turning back. “Should just be another quarter-mile.”

“Great.” Inside, though, anxiety starts to stir.

Right now, he’s just some guy in the woods in anonymous company, but once he returns to people who actually know him, the _aftermath_ begins. Or, more importantly, the _questions_ begin.

He can trust Natasha and Clint to not be too direct about it (Natasha will do her own hunting and won’t ask unless it really matters, and Clint will just maintain some surface level or obliquely related talk while he looks for clues), and Rhodey and Pepper—even if they want to _take names_ —know him well enough to ask through a combination of wooing and guerilla warfare. Fury’s all business, and he can handle business (that’s why he called him). But Steve will aim his fix-it cannon of good intentions at him, and Bruce will be subtler but concerned and professionally curious—well, subtle until he’s green in the face. (Hopefully Thor is still on sabbatical or doing whatever gods do these days, because such unaffectedly heartfelt concern in archaic English might be a bit too much right now.)

Level of directness and communication style aside, it doesn’t change the fact that he can’t give them any _answers_.

And then, there’s the whole fact he was _dead_.

…Is there any literature on this? Like, a self-help book on how to socially return from the dead? ‘I was dead for _x_ time, but now I’m the life of the party’?

How long was he gone? Did they all believe he was dead? Did they grieve?

(Were they relieved?)

There are a lot of unknowns (some sitting on his back burner for _later later later_ ), and he’s going to be walking unprepared into a difficult emotional climate. Of which he is the primary cause.

If he didn’t ostensibly need medical attention, maybe he’d cut and run. Lick his wounds in private for a bit and see if he remembers anything—or at least, come up with a story before he gets back.

But… he needs JARVIS. The tower. To be somewhere familiar.

So he has to face the music. Better sooner rather than later, right?

Publicly, it shouldn’t be too bad. The press won’t be that hard to handle—it’s not like he’s set a precedent of always explaining himself, so this is just another +1 for his mystique in a long history of public eccentricity (he’s looking forward to the headlines). And… the SI board won’t complain about the return of their golden goose. They can’t subsist on his patent (and unpatented) storehouse forever. (Well, maybe they could with Pepper in charge, but…)

At any rate, it’s mostly the personal problems he’s afraid of.

By the time the trail nears Bell Rock Road, the pond-lake has retreated under the cover of the trees like a swamp, seeping seamlessly into the leafy embankment supporting the tarmac. The smell of wet leaves is heady, and Tony feels tired.

“Just a little longer,” Irwin mk-II (he will never look like a Brian) assures him unexpectedly. (He’s kind of offended—he thought he was hiding that pretty damn well, thank you.)

They step onto the road, and the even distribution of pressure against his bare feet almost makes it as though he can _feel_ the road.

Or, maybe sensation really _is_ returning to his body. He’s not counting his chickens, though.

…Thank whoever decided that the middle of this hellhole was a scenic place to build a house—the clearing is _right_ across the street. A small white number with an appreciable field. It’s downright pastoral—the Quinjet will fit right in. Physically.

“This is perfect,” Tony declares and sits down on the lawn. There’s a stone wall abutting the road, and he uses it as a back rest.

Irwin mk-II makes for the dooryard. “I’ll go see if the owner will let us borrow someplace to sit.”

Sherpa Guy scrunches his face. “Brian, wait—“

“Relax, it’s fine. I’m just gonna ring the doorbell.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll be waiting out here and _not_ talking to more people naked.” Tony adjusts the blanket to sit more comfortably. “Although, it might not be a bad idea to let them know we’re going to land a small plane on their property. Just saying,” he suggests diffusely (orders).

Irwin mk-II pauses in place. “Should I… tell them who you are?”

“Preferably no, but it’s not like I have an NDA whipped up and ready to go,” Tony sighs. “As much as I’d like to keep this under wraps, I can’t control who you guys talk to about this… Either way, they’ll make their own assumptions—it’s not your average plane that’ll be landing here. You’re good people, though; just do what you think is best.”

He hopes flattery will appeal to their common decency, but he smiles resignedly.

(Ironically, it’s probably the resigned smile that will help more than the flattery.)

Sherpa Guy shoots a look at Irwin mk-II. “We… can be discreet. Right Brian?”

“…Yeah.” Irwin mk-II looks unsure, but Tony’s not going to try to sell him on it. “I’ll… see what I can do.”

(He heads over.)

“Thanks,” Tony calls after him. Then he lets his eyes close. “I’m going to take a nap. Remind me before I go to get your addresses.”

“Okay,” Sherpa Guy says.

Really, he’s not sure if he can sleep like this (he can barely sleep even when there’s a bed available with 1,800 thread count sheets), but he is _done_ with social interaction right now. Not that he’s not grateful or that the Hiker Duo are bad company, but he has to _save up_ for the coming conversations.

He must’ve been really exhausted, because he actually nods off and wakes to the sound of air rushing.

Above, the Quinjet yaws into place and pitches into a slight landing flare, lift fans rippling the grass below and rustling the pines surrounding the land. Sherpa Guy, Irwin mk-II, and some unnamed older woman (probably the owner of the house) watch in awe as the wheels touch down. The fuselage sinks flush to ground level and the engine powers down. The door opens with a pneumatic hiss and the Avengers rush out.

He’s still too out of it to get up and meet them, but they come to him.

Unbidden, the first thought—or feeling—he has is that _it’s been too long_.

He’s about to say as much, but they’re crowding around him in worry— _crowding him like leering shadows and bright lights and stainless steel—_

He listens to their shouts from deep underwater as his vision dims to black.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story on AO3. 
> 
> Also my first time posting to a kink meme. Also my first time writing anything Marvel (let alone Avengers or Iron Man). So many cherries popped. Cherry poppin' madness.
> 
> Hopefully I don't butcher anybody too much in terms of characterization. Oh yeah, and let me apologize profusely and prophylactically for my abuse of parentheses, em dashes, and ellipses. (I can no longer control myself. It's not good.)
> 
> Anyways. I'm mostly writing and posting anonymously on AvengerKink, and when I hit a good stopping spot or around 5000 words, I'll stitch together what I write over there for a chapter here. Mostly, this is just to force myself to stick with developments by setting some irrevocably in stone. Otherwise I edit until my soul crumples beyond all repair. :D (Let this also serve as the general caveat that this is unbeta'd and probably sticky in places. I read it aloud to myself but sometimes I just can't catch my own stupid, you know?)
> 
> By the way, Freetown State Forest is real. But I've never been there, so... Well, there's a lot of Google, and artistic license involved. (If you know the area... My apologies.)


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